You may have noticed that at OSGH we have always been mindful of the environment. We have never used plastic bottles in rooms, we have never used plastic single use preserves, we make as much of our own produce as possible and buy locally wherever we can – more recently Mr C’s Brown Sauce from just around the corner.

Personally, we have been recycling for as long as councils have done so. We have always been really lucky to live in counties that are hot on recycling, although we have spent many a Sunday at the bottle recycling! It was a bit like the walk of shame, where everyone compared their stash!

The plastic movement is not our only concern. We (and Plastic Free Shanklin) are about reducing our waste and carbon footprint. OSGH was recently awarded Gold Award by Visit Isle of Wight for Sustainable Transport, which enables us to let our guests borrow a one day bus pass to get around the Island #drivelessseemore or #drivelessdrinkmore OK so that’s not very grown up, but it’s nice for the everyone to be able to see the Island and not just the tarmac in front of your face. You may have also noticed we’ve had solar panels for the last 6 or 7 years.

We have made some changes in the last year to reduce our plastic. We no longer wrap our goats milk soap in plastic, so you might get strange messages on your soap – see below. (If anyone needs a big roll of cellophane you are welcome to it!), we buy our toilet rolls from Who Gives A Crap, which are wrapped and posted in paper and cardboard, we make our own ketchup when the veg man understands my text messages and I get enough tomatoes! You will also notice that whilst we still use the lovely Algotherm toiletries they are now in large bottles (not refillable), instead of single use. You should see the mountain of half used little body lotions we have in the store room! Man am I going to be glowing!

We no longer use napkins for our boiled eggs and porridge (as a non slip), Grandma OSGH sewed some cotton washable squares. We erred away from single use yoghurt pots last year. We are still working on the yoghurt thing – hoping to make our own, if it goes well. As you know we already make our own preserves, we make our own bread (now fully vegan) and speaking of which, we are working hard on more vegan specials this year. We have been very strict about not putting things on the plate that are not homemade or local, so when the Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages go out I hang my head every time, so we are working on a homemade vegan alternative. More on that in another blog coming soon.

We no longer use tea bags for breakfast due to the plastic content, we no longer give cotton buds and as that only the 3 Ps are flushed. You wouldn’t believe the things people think you can flush!

In making all of our food and cooking to order we have very little food waste. Little Miss OSGH is more than happy to eat any of Paul Murphy’s sausages that need to be consumed.

I haven’t yet written that roast tomato recipe book, but there will be recipes coming soon in another form, so watch this space too.

There’s lots in the works for 2019, so keep up to date with us on the Facebook page. Mr OSGH also has something up his sleeve, but it’s not the bar! It seems I might have to take over any homemade sausage making though!